The Flop House: Episode #156 - 3 Days to Kill

[0:00] When Mick G teams up with Luc Besson and Kevin Costner, what could possibly go wrong?

[0:07] We discuss Three Days to Kill.

[0:30] The Flop House

[1:01] We have a guest star!

[1:05] And musical guest for non-blogs!

[1:30] The Around the Horn intros!

[2:00] Tonight's subject is Little Jack Horner.

[2:30] Adam Agoin

[3:00] Adam Agoin

[3:30] Adam Agoin

[4:00] Adam Agoin

[4:30] Adam Agoin

[5:00] Adam Agoin

[5:30] Three Days to Kill!

[6:00] Adam Agoin

[6:31] Let's talk about three days to kill.

[6:34] Elliot, why don't you give us a little...

[6:37] Okay, so Kevin Costner's in this movie and he's a, I don't know, a serial killer?

[6:41] Yeah, he's playing Mr. Brooks in this movie.

[6:43] He's playing Mel Brooks again, the 2,000-year-old serial killer.

[6:46] My parents love Mr. Brooks.

[6:48] Sir, did you know Jesus Christ?

[6:51] Yeah, I killed him as the 2,000-year-old serial killer.

[6:56] Napoleon, sir, did you know Napoleon?

[6:58] Him I killed too.

[7:01] Yes, tell us a little about Abraham Lincoln.

[7:04] I wore his skin.

[7:06] Kept him in a dungeon.

[7:08] It's a one-note premise.

[7:10] Mel Brooks is just so good.

[7:12] Anyway, so three days to kill.

[7:13] Look, let's not underestimate Carl Reiner's contributions.

[7:17] Without a straight man like that, Mel Brooks could never have come up with

[7:20] the different ways he killed all of those historical figures.

[7:23] So, Kevin Costner plays Ethan Renner, a veteran CIA agent

[7:28] whose basic job is just murdering people.

[7:30] Ethan Renner, combining the names Ethan Hunt from Mission Impossible

[7:35] and Jeremy Renner, the actual actor who took over the Bourne Trilogy.

[7:38] I prefer to think that it combines Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, I believe,

[7:42] with Runner Runner, the Justin Timberlake movie.

[7:45] With a misspelled Rumor Willis.

[7:49] So he is a CIA hitman killer who, in the beginning we see,

[7:54] is trying to capture the albino, a man who works for an arms dealer

[7:57] called the Wolf.

[7:59] And the albino is about to sell a dirty bomb in a suitcase

[8:02] to a bunch of terrorists in a hotel.

[8:04] Yes, Stuart?

[8:05] I was just going to say that Kevin Costner knows a thing or two about wolves.

[8:09] He's danced with them.

[8:10] He's danced with them.

[8:11] There would have been a great moment where he said,

[8:12] we're trying to track down the wolf.

[8:14] I've danced with him before.

[8:16] And Graham Greene came out and talked to him for a little bit.

[8:20] The actor, not the author.

[8:22] The author would make no sense.

[8:24] Kevin, I was wondering if we could discuss how Catholicism applies

[8:28] to the spy novel.

[8:30] I'm on the middle of a mission right now.

[8:32] Because Kevin Costner has a super gravely Batman voice in this.

[8:35] He's sick.

[8:36] It's because he's sick.

[8:37] He thinks he has a cold, but it turns out he actually,

[8:40] he has a cancer cold.

[8:42] The mission goes horribly wrong.

[8:44] Everybody's killed except Kevin Costner and Amber Heard,

[8:46] who is in charge of the mission,

[8:47] and yet just watched it from a rooftop with binoculars

[8:50] and did nothing the whole time.

[8:51] The albino gets away.

[8:52] There's that not terrible action sequence,

[8:54] and Kevin Costner discovers he doesn't have a cold.

[8:57] He has brain cancer, which has spread to his lungs,

[8:59] which I think means he's dead.

[9:01] Basically, yeah.

[9:02] The doctor gives him three to five months to live,

[9:04] which according to the movie is three days.

[9:06] But despite the fact that he doesn't have a cold anymore,

[9:09] he doesn't give up his scarf affectation.

[9:11] Yes, he always wears a scarf.

[9:13] The scarves are of different levels of jaundiness.

[9:16] Well, sort of.

[9:17] They're also all just very thin and casually hanging on his neck.

[9:21] They don't necessarily serve a purpose.

[9:24] Every scarf is meant to attract someone's eyes

[9:26] so you can go, oh, this old thing?

[9:27] I just threw it on?

[9:28] No.

[9:29] They were like fashion choices that he was making.

[9:32] But the other way I justified it was, oh, he's sick.

[9:34] Maybe this is like a symptom of being sick.

[9:36] He needs to keep his jowls warm.

[9:41] There are certain scenes where it is very clear that Kevin Costner

[9:43] has a lot of loose skin around his neck and cheek area.

[9:46] It makes it very difficult to chew.

[9:48] That's what his oncologist told him.

[9:51] They're like, oh, you've got brain cancer that's spread to your lungs.

[9:54] The most important thing is keep your waddle warm.

[9:57] That's what he's going to do.

[10:00] I think with some beautiful women, they do not want to see your waddle.

[10:02] You're very susceptible to waddle chills in your current unhealthy state.

[10:06] So he decides he wants to spend the end of his life getting back in touch with his wife

[10:10] and daughter, who are estranged from him because he is this gravelly voiced murderer.

[10:16] Murder monster.

[10:16] Murder monster who lives in an apartment.

[10:19] First he goes to an apartment and finds that there's a bunch of squatters from what, Senegal?

[10:23] Somewhere in Africa, but I don't remember the exact country.

[10:27] But due to French law, he can't kick them out.

[10:30] Yeah.

[10:31] And they were very endearing and very warm.

[10:33] And they were the first likable people in the entire film.

[10:37] This basically, you think it's going to take on the plot of The Visitor,

[10:40] that he comes home and there's a guy living in his apartment,

[10:42] and he learns from this guy how to live again.

[10:44] But really, they're just there every now and then when he returns to his apartment,

[10:47] he gets stabbed and chopped in half.

[10:49] Yeah, and that's not too far of a stretch considering that Luc Besson,

[10:52] who wrote this movie, made The Professional, which is kind of like that,

[10:55] of a hitman learning to relearn about life and humans.

[10:59] I thought it meant it was like The Visitor,

[11:01] and that it ended with Jean Reno just playing a drum somewhere

[11:05] in order to get out his anger at the US immigration system.

[11:08] But it did make us feel like, I mean, it gave the false sense at the beginning of the movie,

[11:12] like, oh, maybe this movie's going to go someplace new and interesting.

[11:16] I did not expect Kevin Costner to come back and find this family of Senegalese squatters

[11:23] in my home, and it gave a warmth and spirit that the movie then let down.

[11:31] Totally dissipated, and so here's the problem with this movie.

[11:35] Half the movie is an action-adventure spy film.

[11:37] Half the movie is a guy who works too hard and is trying to reconnect with his family.

[11:42] He's like a bad dad soccer dad.

[11:43] He's a bad dad. He's a spy dad bad dad.

[11:46] He's like if George Butler was a spy.

[11:49] Or Nicolas Cage was a CIA agent from Stolen.

[11:53] It's like if in The Weatherman, Nicolas Cage was not a weatherman but a CIA agent.

[11:59] It's like if in Mr. Destiny, instead of wishing on a thing,

[12:03] he had a bad relationship with his kid, and he's a spy.

[12:07] It's like if Destiny turned on the radio,

[12:10] and when he turned on the radio, Cats in the Cradle was playing.

[12:14] That's what this movie's like.

[12:17] That's what reminds me that in our last movie we watched was Last Vegas,

[12:20] and that Morgan Freeman's ringtone when his son called was Cats in the Cradle.

[12:23] Why would you program that?

[12:25] It's like you're just saying through your ringtone, I am a bad father.

[12:28] How does that song go?

[12:29] And the cats in the cradle and the silver spoon.

[12:32] It's all about a dad who never has time for his son.

[12:34] You might remember the Ugly Kid Joe cover of it that was huge.

[12:38] I don't know when you guys were like six or something, I don't know.

[12:43] You're a little younger.

[12:44] You might remember the baby Einstein.

[12:46] Oh my god, I was just listening to that on the subway on the way here.

[12:49] You know why?

[12:50] Because goo-goo fucking ga-ga, I'm a baby.

[12:55] That is the edgiest baby.

[12:56] Goo-goo fucking ga-ga, bro, I'm a baby.

[12:59] Wham, wham, bullshit.

[13:01] The baby takes a long drag of a cigarette.

[13:02] It's a pacifier with a cigarette in it.

[13:04] Is Capri 120s?

[13:07] So anyway, the point is, he's got these immigrants living in his apartment.

[13:11] In a way, he's an immigrant too.

[13:12] He's living in Paris.

[13:13] The whole movie is set in Paris, aside from the opening.

[13:16] But anyway, so-

[13:17] It's from Paris with love.

[13:18] To anyone who's familiar with Chris Elliott's comedy special from the 80s,

[13:23] Action Family, where the joke was, whenever the character is outdoors,

[13:27] it's a hard-boiled cop show.

[13:29] Whenever he's indoors, it's a family sitcom.

[13:31] This movie is basically that.

[13:33] But we're supposed to take it seriously for the most part,

[13:35] but there's still goofy Luc Besson-type jokes and characters.

[13:38] Because Luc Besson wrote and produced this.

[13:40] McG directed it.

[13:41] McG, famously, of the Christian Bale trying to get his attention

[13:44] because a lighting guy was walking past him.

[13:49] But so, this movie, to make a long story short,

[13:52] Kevin Costner will occasionally go looking-

[13:54] He gets hired for One Last Spy Mission by Amber Heard,

[13:57] playing the low-rent, poor man's version of Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow.

[14:01] And they're both CIA agents.

[14:03] It's not like she recruits him.

[14:07] He was a CIA agent who got sick.

[14:10] She's trying to pull him back in out of retirement.

[14:13] And she does a lot of showing up in sexy outfits in very dimly-lit locales

[14:17] and talking to him and giving him syringes of this magic cancer medicine

[14:23] that may save him, but only if he catches and kills the wolf and the albino,

[14:29] the ones that got away.

[14:31] And were those the ones giving him hallucinations?

[14:33] Yes, and the drugs give him hallucinations,

[14:36] which take the form of him getting dizzy if his heart rate gets up.

[14:39] It's the anti-crank.

[14:41] Yeah, well, that's what I was going to say.

[14:42] It's like Crank 3, no cranking.

[14:44] And it had no-

[14:45] Keep the cranking to a minimum.

[14:47] Crank 3, Yank My Crank.

[14:49] Yank my crank up.

[14:51] Wah, wah, wah.

[14:54] You guys remember that song?

[14:55] No.

[14:56] Is that too young for you?

[14:59] I think some kids were blasting that,

[15:01] and I told them to turn it down, I'm sleeping.

[15:04] He said, turn it down, I can't hear my Benny Goodman record.

[15:07] That's great.

[15:09] Now that was music.

[15:11] But this is one of the many scenarios in which this movie

[15:15] could have been a lot more fun than it is.

[15:17] Because I was going to say, just what you're saying,

[15:19] it's like a crank scenario where, oh, I got to-

[15:23] You mean a Frank Sinatra.

[15:24] I put this medicine in.

[15:26] A Frank scenario?

[15:29] He's the guy who runs a tire shop.

[15:32] I got to put this medicine in to keep myself going,

[15:35] but I'm going to hallucinate unless I drink a bunch of vodka.

[15:39] So it could have been like a cross between crank

[15:40] and drunken master, but it was not that-

[15:44] Instead it's a cross between garbage and a piece of shit.

[15:47] Here's the thing, there's a lot of concepts in here

[15:50] that could make for a fun movie,

[15:51] like a family man spy is a fun idea.

[15:55] There's one guy who works for the albino

[15:58] who he becomes kind of friendly with,

[15:59] even though he keeps torturing him

[16:01] to get information out of him.

[16:03] He asks him for dad advice because this guy has two daughters.

[16:07] We really like that.

[16:08] Yeah, he has to use his spy contacts to help his daughter

[16:11] get through everyday teen stuff, which is a funny idea.

[16:14] And Dan made a good point that Gross Point Blank

[16:16] is a movie that handles this type of thing much better

[16:19] and is a really fun movie.

[16:21] And this does it very poorly.

[16:22] Yeah, it's a question of tone, I feel like,

[16:24] if you're going to make this kind of movie where it's just like,

[16:26] oh, we're going to combine ultraviolence

[16:28] with low-key, everyday character comedy.

[16:33] But you've got to really hit that and keep it consistent.

[16:35] In this movie, the tones veered wildly from scene to scene.

[16:40] Yeah.

[16:41] Like, none more so than when Amber Heard is on screen.

[16:46] And as you say, it's like Scarlett Johansson as the Black Widow

[16:51] and then Hayley Steinfeld as the daughter's on screen.

[16:53] And all of a sudden, we're watching, I don't know,

[16:55] One Tree Hill or something.

[16:56] It's like a cross between One Tree Hill and Danger Diabolik.

[17:00] It's like an Italian spy popcorn comic book movie

[17:04] and then, yeah, like a family drama.

[17:06] You know, Pieces of April or something.

[17:09] And for some reason, it wouldn't bother me

[17:12] if it was even more extreme, but it's just so kind of bland.

[17:15] Yeah, they don't, the choices they make,

[17:16] it's like they want to, they veer wildly in tone

[17:19] while also being kind of safe in all the choices.

[17:21] And even though it feels like every time

[17:23] he has a drug freakout, it's,

[17:25] McG gets super excited that he can use his blurry lens

[17:30] and his pulse lens.

[17:32] Here's the other thing about this.

[17:33] Every single moment of the movie

[17:34] is punctuated with a bass drop

[17:36] and it sounds like somebody was watching

[17:38] the Inception trailer on a laptop

[17:40] following the camera around the entire movie.

[17:43] But anyway, but I will say there's a bunch of good,

[17:45] fairly well done action sequences in it.

[17:47] There's a fist fight in a bakery

[17:48] between Kevin Costner and a hitman that I like.

[17:52] Baguette soup.

[17:53] It's one of those things where like-

[17:54] Mostly because you just like to see French bakeries.

[17:55] You're like, mm, that looks-

[17:56] It looks delicious.

[17:58] But also like-

[17:58] You were salivating during that.

[18:00] I'm a big fan of-

[18:01] That was the Popeye's chicken he had consumed.

[18:03] Salivatory glands working out of the throat.

[18:05] I had just finished eating it

[18:06] and then I remembered that I had Popeye's

[18:08] and it made me hungry for Popeye's again.

[18:10] I started drooling all over everything.

[18:11] It's really weird.

[18:12] Because when you saw the hitman's hand

[18:13] get mushed into a working panini press

[18:15] and the sizzle sound made you hungry.

[18:17] Yeah.

[18:18] But I'm a big fan of action scenes in a location

[18:21] where they use a lot of objects from the location

[18:23] in the fighting.

[18:24] Like, if you have a setting for an action scene

[18:27] that has things in it,

[18:28] like I want to see those things used

[18:29] and they do a fair amount of that.

[18:31] There's a car chase scene that's not so bad.

[18:33] Jessica, I keep cutting you off.

[18:34] I apologize.

[18:35] No, I'm just gonna say-

[18:36] He does that to everyone.

[18:37] I totally get what you're saying.

[18:38] Jackie Chan is actually really good at doing that.

[18:39] No matter what the plot is.

[18:40] Like, he will always grab like a laptop

[18:45] and just make that face that Jackie makes

[18:48] and be like, ooh, ooh, ooh,

[18:48] but it's like so delightful.

[18:49] You would think the bad guys

[18:50] would clear all items from the room.

[18:52] Yeah.

[18:52] We are only fighting him in padded rooms

[18:55] or sensory deprivation chambers.

[18:57] Bringing him into this clean room,

[18:58] this like decontamination andromedae strain room.

[19:03] But little did you know,

[19:03] it was a holodeck all along.

[19:05] No.

[19:06] Huh?

[19:07] Oh, so things start appearing, I guess.

[19:08] Yeah, you could probably imagine shit, right?

[19:10] Yeah, because he's got a green lantern ring

[19:12] that he just turns into like ladders

[19:14] that he can swing around

[19:16] or like plates that he can catch before they break.

[19:19] Yeah, a bunch of Ming Vases

[19:20] that are falling from the ceiling.

[19:22] What, because he's Chinese,

[19:23] they gotta be Ming Vases?

[19:24] Yeah, they gotta.

[19:25] Oh, shit.

[19:25] Super expensive.

[19:26] Thank you.

[19:27] You're welcome.

[19:28] Yeah.

[19:29] So the point is,

[19:30] he's got trouble on his hands

[19:32] from his daughter and from the spies.

[19:35] And his wife.

[19:36] And his wife.

[19:37] Well, his wife's out of town for a lot of it.

[19:38] But she gives him the big old tomatoes, I feel like.

[19:41] The big old tomato.

[19:42] She throws the big tomatoes at him,

[19:45] which I really loved.

[19:47] Somebody had to do it.

[19:48] No, but she was the one that,

[19:50] her only job for the movie

[19:51] was to keep walking in and be like,

[19:53] now look, if you mess this up,

[19:55] gone forever.

[19:56] That's true.

[19:57] These are the stakes.

[19:58] Goodbye.

[19:59] And the thing is.

[20:00] He left and then he taught his daughter to ride a bike

[20:03] and then saved her from almost getting raped in a club bathroom.

[20:06] So crazy!

[20:07] It was a weird scene.

[20:08] And then a bodyguard carried her out of there, right?

[20:09] Yeah.

[20:10] Yeah.

[20:11] They didn't play the bodyguard's song on the soundtrack, which was a mistake.

[20:14] They don't have the rights to that.

[20:15] That sequence where his daughter said,

[20:17] I'm going to be at a friend's house, but she went out to party,

[20:19] and so he's going to find her.

[20:20] So he's using his spy techniques to track her down.

[20:23] That could have been a really fun sequence, but it was kind of lazy.

[20:27] It's one of these things where instead of using strategy to get around people,

[20:31] he just shoots people in the foot or punches them a lot.

[20:34] And you're wondering, how is this guy just punching and shooting his way through Paris?

[20:38] Nobody seems to care or notice.

[20:39] He also, with his live-in family, walked around with a gun a lot.

[20:43] He had guns out, and there were children in the family.

[20:45] But he had no problem just pointing at his gun.

[20:48] Yeah, just waving around.

[20:49] Yeah.

[20:50] We get it.

[20:51] We're thankful that you let us live here,

[20:52] but can you take it easy with the gun?

[20:54] It's sending a strange message.

[20:57] The family living with him pays off when the daughter in the family

[21:01] gives birth to her baby in front of Kevin Costner.

[21:04] And of course, they hand the baby to him because,

[21:06] as the white guy whose life is at a crossroads,

[21:09] he's the one that the resources need to be put towards.

[21:12] That baby, don't let it suckle at its mom's teats too long

[21:15] because Kevin Costner's got to learn a thing or two about family.

[21:17] They were like, we will give it to the white man.

[21:21] You can be more trusted with this than us.

[21:23] It looks like he needs his faith and life restored.

[21:27] What do we have that has a lot of life force in it?

[21:29] What about my baby?

[21:30] It's a newborn baby.

[21:31] Oh, but your baby.

[21:32] You just gave birth to it.

[21:33] All it do take, he takes.

[21:34] It's your baby now.

[21:37] You need it more than I do.

[21:38] I already have a daughter, and I don't know how to take care of her.

[21:40] Your baby, got to go.

[21:41] Yeah, no.

[21:42] That sure made me mad of just them having a live birth in the apartment.

[21:47] That was, I was telling you, my worst nightmare.

[21:49] My worst nightmare.

[21:50] French health care is terrible.

[21:51] Yeah.

[21:52] French health care is the worst.

[21:53] So, Jessica, your worst nightmare is to give birth in front of Kevin Costner?

[21:56] Yeah, well, the idea of giving birth already just gives me anxiety.

[22:00] Oh, it's a horrifying experience.

[22:02] My worst nightmare is to give birth in front of my whole family in an apartment, and then

[22:07] Kevin Costner walks in, and then holds my baby for a long time.

[22:11] And tears the baby from your hands?

[22:13] That's my nightmare.

[22:14] This is mine now.

[22:15] Snuggles it to his waddle.

[22:16] I do have to wonder if this stays here now.

[22:21] He's just storing stolen babies in his waddle.

[22:23] He swaddles the baby with his swaddle.

[22:26] Did your neck just cry?

[22:28] No.

[22:29] Just give me the Dairy Queen Blizzard that I ordered.

[22:32] I do, I do, I do have to wonder what imaginary-

[22:37] They said Reese's Pieces.

[22:38] These are M&M's.

[22:39] Use your eyes.

[22:40] Take it back.

[22:41] They taste almost the same.

[22:42] I can tell the difference.

[22:43] No, you can't.

[22:44] There's no way you can.

[22:45] Yes, I can.

[22:46] Sir, I'm going to have to ask you and your neck baby to leave.

[22:52] I don't have a neck baby.

[22:53] I can see your neck baby.

[22:54] Do I have to call my manager?

[22:56] I can see it.

[22:57] It's hands reaching out from under your neck waddle.

[22:59] Sir, everybody knows you have a neck baby.

[23:03] Everybody knows.

[23:04] I paid my $2.59.

[23:05] Give me my ice cream.

[23:06] My medium Blizzard.

[23:07] He got a medium.

[23:08] I wanted to stay healthy, so I didn't get a large.

[23:09] But a small is not-

[23:10] A small is too small.

[23:11] It's still a treat.

[23:13] It's not going to satisfy me.

[23:14] I'm like, six?

[23:15] Come on.

[23:16] It's still a treat.

[23:17] It's not a meal.

[23:18] It's about eating sensible portions.

[23:19] I'm going to give a couple of spoonfuls to my neck baby.

[23:20] I mean, my neck.

[23:21] I heard it.

[23:22] I heard it, sir.

[23:23] Okay, one, you're clearly feeding your baby in your neck, and two, that baby is not old

[23:24] enough to eat ice cream.

[23:25] It likes it.

[23:27] It cannot handle dairy proteins at that age.

[23:28] Sir, I'm going to have to ask you and your neck baby to leave.

[23:29] I can see your neck baby.

[23:30] Do I have to call my manager?

[23:31] Yes, I can.

[23:32] Sir, everybody knows.

[23:33] I paid my $2.59.

[23:34] Give me my ice cream.

[23:35] My medium Blizzard.

[23:39] It cannot handle dairy proteins at that age.

[23:40] Similac.

[23:41] You make it with Similac instead of milk?

[23:42] I don't think we have the efficiency.

[23:43] It's too late, sir.

[23:44] I've got to go change my next diaper.

[23:45] I'll be right back.

[23:46] Do you have a creamed spinach Blizzard?

[23:47] Yes, sir.

[23:48] It's our worst selling Blizzard.

[23:49] Alongside our chopped salmon Blizzard.

[23:50] Of course.

[23:51] There's our mashed pork Blizzard.

[23:52] It's the best.

[24:04] There's our mashed pork Blizzard.

[24:06] Did I want your chicken Blizzard?

[24:09] We have our schmaltz Blizzard.

[24:11] That's very...

[24:12] Our wiener Blizzard.

[24:14] I'm starting to...

[24:15] This is Dairy Queen, right?

[24:16] That's just disgusting, Queen.

[24:17] We're in the spin-off of Dairy Queen that sells gross things.

[24:20] So would you like that pre-digested civet poop coffee bean Blizzard or no?

[24:27] That stuff's so expensive.

[24:29] That'd be the most expensive Blizzard.

[24:31] It costs $100.

[24:32] For what?

[24:33] The medium?

[24:34] That's for the small, sir.

[24:35] It's $135 for the medium.

[24:37] Oh, it's still a pretty good deal then.

[24:39] You get so much more civet poop.

[24:40] It's $150 for the large.

[24:42] And I get more than 50% more ice cream, right?

[24:44] I can't afford not to get the large, okay?

[24:47] The baby in my neck is going to love this.

[24:50] Sir, a baby in your neck, see?

[24:52] And that's when he gets right in.

[24:53] Yeah, it's kind of like he has a waddle-quaddle.

[24:57] Waddle-quaddle.

[24:58] Because quaddle was a baby, is what I'm saying.

[25:01] He didn't look like a grown man, did he?

[25:04] So wait, he was born after the original guy was born?

[25:07] Clearly that guy was giving birth through C-section.

[25:09] The baby got stuck, and he just grew up and became a quaddle.

[25:12] That was the worst superhero origin story I've ever heard.

[25:15] The Adventures of Superstuck Baby?

[25:16] Yeah.

[25:17] Yeah.

[25:20] It's also not that far off from Athena, maybe, right?

[25:23] Yeah, I mean, she's praying fully formed from the brow of Zeus.

[25:26] Yeah.

[25:27] If she got stuck, she'd just be a headquaddle.

[25:30] Quade, the people need air.

[25:32] Also, I'm the goddess of knowledge and victory in my form of B-case.

[25:37] Also, go to Athens.

[25:39] This was the city I'm the patron god of.

[25:42] So what else happens?

[25:45] So anyway, so it all comes to a head.

[25:48] Let's just skip straight through it.

[25:49] It all comes to a head at prom night, where it turns out that Kevin Costner's

[25:54] daughter's boyfriend's husband's business partner is the wolf,

[25:58] and he's, for some reason, going to prom with them.

[26:00] That's what business partners do, dude.

[26:02] So not only in France do the parents go to prom, as well as the kids,

[26:06] but the parents' business partners are also invited.

[26:08] And this French prom is jumping.

[26:11] Ballin'.

[26:12] Yeah, it is a club.

[26:13] That's what kids say, right?

[26:14] Jumping and ballin'?

[26:15] As a youngish person, I guess, yeah, we still say that.

[26:18] It sounds different when you do it.

[26:20] I'll allow it.

[26:21] So how would you say it?

[26:22] It was just, it was like, just.

[26:24] Was it live?

[26:25] Turned up.

[26:26] It was turned up, is what the phrase is.

[26:27] Turned up.

[26:28] Yeah, turned, with a T.

[26:29] Turned, with a T.

[26:30] Turned top?

[26:31] Turned up.

[26:32] Turned up.

[26:33] I think it's turned top, like Carrot Top's brother turned top.

[26:35] I mean, that's not that crazy where we would, like.

[26:38] I mean, is it that crazy?

[26:39] No, it's not that weird.

[26:40] It's not that weird.

[26:41] But it was very turned top.

[26:42] There was, like, probably drugs being used.

[26:44] Almost certainly.

[26:45] There was a special make-out room that the daughter went to with her boyfriend,

[26:48] and they kind of.

[26:49] And made out.

[26:50] I assume they kind of disappeared from the movie after their big shootout started.

[26:53] So they're probably still having sex in that room, you know.

[26:57] I mean.

[26:58] It's prom night.

[26:59] He seemed like a nice guy.

[27:00] He did seem like a nice guy.

[27:01] He scores goals.

[27:02] Yeah.

[27:03] In his soccer games.

[27:04] It's not his fault he's loosely related to that wolf guy, sort of.

[27:07] Yeah.

[27:08] Or loosely based on a historical figure.

[27:10] Yeah.

[27:11] Stephen Douglas.

[27:12] Former senator.

[27:13] Sure.

[27:14] All right.

[27:15] If he was a nervous French teen.

[27:16] But, so, there's a big.

[27:18] So a giant shootout begins in this prom.

[27:20] The wife notices Kevin Costner is tracking the wolf with his eyes, and she says,

[27:24] You're still working, aren't you?

[27:26] And now this is after he hasn't revealed to his daughter what he does for a living.

[27:29] She thinks he might have another family.

[27:31] That's a secret.

[27:32] He doesn't love her.

[27:33] But he teaches her how to ride a bike and how to dance.

[27:35] And they patch it up.

[27:36] And there's a big shootout at the prom.

[27:40] And it ends with.

[27:42] I forgot.

[27:43] There was that whole car chase earlier where the albino.

[27:46] Let's take a flashback.

[27:48] The albino was the main henchman.

[27:50] And frankly.

[27:51] Who's bald, by the way.

[27:52] He looks like a snake man.

[27:53] Frankly, if he wasn't bald, he could just pass for a normal guy.

[27:55] He's not that albino.

[27:56] Yeah.

[27:57] But his big thing, the way he likes to kill people is by putting them in front of things that are moving so their heads get chopped off.

[28:03] He's very elaborate and very specific.

[28:05] And there can be kind of slow-moving things.

[28:07] So in the first scene, he kills an American agent disguised as a hotel maid by sliding her into an elevator shaft and just letting an elevator hit her off.

[28:16] That's right.

[28:17] The old gangster squad elevator attack.

[28:20] Whereas James Brolin.

[28:21] Or Josh Brolin.

[28:22] Josh Brolin.

[28:23] It would have been great if it was James Brolin.

[28:24] Oh, boy.

[28:25] He rightfully just used that to cut a guy's hand off.

[28:28] This was to cut a woman's head off.

[28:30] And so he wants to do the same thing with Kevin Costner with a Paris Metro train.

[28:35] And Kevin Costner is hallucinating.

[28:37] He's tripping balls on this cancer medicine.

[28:39] But he gets his mojo back and instead throws the albino in front of the train.

[28:44] So anyway.

[28:45] How ironic.

[28:46] The very train he was going to kill the albino in.

[28:48] It's like rain on the albino's wedding day.

[28:50] A free ride with the albino already paid.

[28:53] It was the train he was going to marry someday.

[28:55] Do you think he has the nickname the albino as a double blind so that people are looking for an actual albino?

[29:01] They don't think he's the albino?

[29:03] They should have called him the tan man.

[29:04] And also the bald man.

[29:06] He's a man with no hair.

[29:07] Or maybe a light alopecia.

[29:09] Or like Frank.

[29:10] Or like Ronnie.

[29:11] Like a name that doesn't call attention to itself.

[29:13] Like in crime movies, people should just get rid of all albinos.

[29:16] Because there's never a good albino in a crime movie.

[29:19] They're always evil and they get killed.

[29:20] Powder!

[29:21] There's powder.

[29:22] That was a crime movie.

[29:23] Yeah.

[29:24] It was a crime that that movie didn't get a bigger box office.

[29:26] And also the director was a pedophile.

[29:28] So that was a crime too.

[29:29] Wasn't there a really great albino villain in the Matrix?

[29:32] Yeah, there's those two brothers with the dreadlocks.

[29:34] They were werewolves somehow.

[29:36] Yeah.

[29:37] Or vampires.

[29:38] Oh, they were vampires.

[29:39] There's that albino in that Farrelly Brothers movie that turned out to be a good guy.

[29:43] What was that?

[29:44] Was that something about Mary or was that Me, Myself and Irene?

[29:47] Something about Me, Myself and Mary and Irene.

[29:49] Yeah.

[29:50] It was something about Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice and Me, Myself and Irene.

[29:53] Yeah.

[29:54] And let's talk about Kevin.

[29:55] We need to talk about Kevin.

[29:56] Let's talk about Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice and Kevin.

[30:00] So, the point is there's a big shootout, Kevin Costner again has a drug attack where he's

[30:06] hallucinating and you get the-

[30:08] Why do they rely on this guy?

[30:10] That's the big question.

[30:11] That's the weird thing.

[30:12] Like why is-

[30:13] That's the big question.

[30:14] He's all tripping balls on the juice.

[30:15] He's dying.

[30:16] Amber Hewitt seems to be very good at killing people on her own, so why does she need a

[30:18] sick guy?

[30:19] You need this fucking sick, like three days away from dying guy.

[30:24] I like to think she's not that great at killing people because the only people she kills are

[30:28] either lying on the ground or tied up to a chair.

[30:30] Yeah, that's true.

[30:32] But it's never established in the movie what makes him so amazing that only he can pull

[30:37] this job off.

[30:38] Just like, you're the best at what you do, and what you do is coughing a lot before you

[30:42] almost accidentally kill the guy you're trying to kill.

[30:46] Yeah.

[30:47] What I do isn't pretty because of the neck waddles, but the scarf covers it up, right?

[30:51] You mean that-

[30:52] Mostly.

[30:53] That tissue-thin scarf loosely draped around your neck?

[30:56] Yeah.

[30:57] You can't see anything, right?

[30:58] Yeah, I can see everything through it.

[31:02] Why did you order the sheerest scarf imaginable?

[31:04] Should have just draped saran wrap around your neck.

[31:06] It was on Prime.

[31:07] It was Amazon Prime.

[31:08] I had to do it.

[31:09] I bought it too so I could get to the free shipping level.

[31:12] It's more like a cloth necklace.

[31:16] It's like a toilet paper necklace.

[31:21] So there's a big shootout that ends in the riveting scene of a wounded The Wolf and a

[31:25] wounded Kevin Costner just kind of gasping and trying to crawl towards a gun on the ground.

[31:30] Very suspenseful in that we don't care what's going to happen.

[31:33] As I said to you guys at the time, we're watching a character we have no sympathy for whatsoever

[31:38] and the villain.

[31:39] Boom!

[31:40] Boom!

[31:41] Roasted.

[31:42] Salad.

[31:43] Misdirect.

[31:44] Take that, Ethan Renner.

[31:45] So luckily, at the last minute, Amber shows up and shoots the skeleton-faced bad guy.

[31:53] And then I guess that's it.

[31:54] Proving yet again that she could have done it from the beginning.

[31:56] If only he was really skeleton-faced.

[31:58] And I don't mean like the red skull.

[31:59] I mean like his face is a little skeleton.

[32:01] Like a full skeleton.

[32:02] Like a Grim Van Dango?

[32:03] Not like Grim Van Dango.

[32:04] On his neck there's a full skeleton.

[32:07] Yes, there's like the feet start at his neck and go all the way up to his skull but it's

[32:12] little.

[32:13] And he talks and the ribs move when he talks.

[32:17] Kind of like in the Sledgehammer video when Peter Gabriel's face is made out of fruit.

[32:22] There was a bad guy in a Warhammer Fantasy role-playing game whose head was a little

[32:27] guy who jumped off and ran around.

[32:29] What happened to the body when the head was running around?

[32:33] Yeah, it was pretty exciting.

[32:34] You had to kill the little guy first.

[32:36] What happened to the body?

[32:37] I think it died if the little guy died.

[32:39] I'll have to go check my source books.

[32:42] But when he was running around, he just like took a-

[32:45] I mean he kind of sat around.

[32:46] I think the little guy killed guys and it was supposed to be like a murder mystery or

[32:50] something.

[32:51] You're telling us what happens with the body when the little guy jumps out.

[32:53] I think he just chilled out.

[32:54] I mean I guess he's jacking out now.

[32:58] Why would he be doing that?

[33:00] Sorry, my default setting for my body is masturbate.

[33:02] I'm not Vin Diesel.

[33:03] I don't know everything about role-playing games.

[33:05] Good point, good point.

[33:07] So, you're not Vin Diesel, the artist.

[33:11] So, Kevin Costner, the day is saved.

[33:14] The wolf has been killed.

[33:16] Danced with, if you will, a dance of death.

[33:20] What would you call that?

[33:21] Like a toad-tonson?

[33:22] Yeah, toad-tonson works.

[33:23] So, then they retire to a house on the beach and Kevin Costner is just dedicating himself

[33:29] to getting back in touch with his daughter again and again.

[33:32] Giving her advice on how to skip rocks.

[33:34] Yeah, and how to go to school, I guess.

[33:37] She's not going to school.

[33:38] She's just hanging out, skipping stones.

[33:39] I guess POM happens.

[33:40] The year is over.

[33:41] It's the summer and she's going to rock skipping camp.

[33:45] And Amber Heard drives up and she sent him a package and it's another vial of the serum.

[33:50] So, I guess he's cured now?

[33:52] I have a question.

[33:53] Yeah.

[33:54] Was that the last serum he needed to live?

[33:56] I assume so or else it's a cruel joke.

[33:58] Right, like she's going to kill him.

[33:59] Well, maybe she's just stringing him along.

[34:01] She likes to watch the puppet dance.

[34:03] I've got another job for you.

[34:04] Four days to kill.

[34:08] That's better than 32 days to kill.

[34:10] Let's move on to...

[34:12] You had two to live.

[34:13] Sure.

[34:14] Wait, 3.1 days to kill?

[34:17] Yeah, 2.0.

[34:19] So, let's go to final judgments.

[34:21] Final judgments where we decide whether this is a good bad movie, a bad bad movie, or a movie you kind of liked.

[34:27] Elliot, what do you have to say?

[34:29] Where do you fall down on this?

[34:31] I think it was...

[34:34] You know what, I'm going to be generous to it because there were things that I liked about it

[34:39] that I didn't like the movie enough to call it a movie I kind of liked.

[34:41] So, I'm going to say good bad in that it's not exciting or interesting,

[34:46] but again, I'm going to give it my coveted,

[34:48] if it's Saturday afternoon, you're sick, and there's nothing else on TV,

[34:52] go ahead and watch Three Days to Kill.

[34:54] All right.

[34:56] If you're tired of having every other movie that ever existed at your fingertips,

[34:59] watch Three Days to Kill.

[35:01] Jess, I know you're new to our scheme.

[35:06] It's good bad, a movie that is so bad it's good.

[35:11] Then there's spookily scarifying.

[35:13] There's bad bad, a movie that has no value in entertainment terms,

[35:19] or a movie you kind of liked, which I think is self-explanatory.

[35:23] And what did you do, good bad?

[35:25] No, I said good bad, yeah, which was being generous.

[35:27] Which is super generous.

[35:29] It was, dude, because I'm going to go bad bad.

[35:31] I was like, not having a good time.

[35:33] You guys were fine, but you guys weren't enough to carry the movie.

[35:35] Wow, is that our job now?

[35:37] I mean, you said I would come and hang out.

[35:39] It was a long walk over to Dan's house.

[35:41] It took a lot out of me.

[35:43] No, no, no.

[35:45] Honestly, I think it was just bad bad.

[35:47] I do like the person who co-wrote it, but it was not...

[35:51] Luke Basson.

[35:53] Luke Basson, I do love him.

[35:55] Luke Bassoon.

[35:57] Luke of Bassoons.

[35:59] Look at my Bassoons, I love him a lot.

[36:02] I wouldn't even recommend you watch it on a sick day.

[36:04] Just watch something tighter than that.

[36:06] I mean, you made a good point when we were watching it earlier,

[36:08] is that Luke Basson seems to be focused so much on producing and writing things,

[36:12] when he seems to have a better grasp of the stuff that he's writing when he directs it.

[36:17] Yeah, if he directed this movie,

[36:19] I feel like he would have been able to work out the problems in the script while he's making it,

[36:23] and he'd be able to carry that tone a lot better than McG.

[36:26] Capture the silly and serious, which seems to permeate.

[36:30] Yeah, McG, who I'm just going to reveal it,

[36:32] is former presidential candidate George McGovern.

[36:34] Wow!

[36:36] He's been directing movies under the name McG for a long time,

[36:38] ever since he lost the 72 election.

[36:40] I didn't know that.

[36:42] Did he direct Torque?

[36:44] I'm just going to quickly say, I agree.

[36:46] Didn't answer McMahon's question.

[36:48] It's a bad bad movie.

[36:50] It's a bad bad movie.

[36:52] That's the thing, if you said that to an old person,

[36:56] they would be like, was Torque a McG?

[36:59] They'd think they were having a stroke.

[37:05] I'm tempted to like it,

[37:07] just because it goes off in 50 different directions,

[37:09] and that's kind of crazy,

[37:11] but ultimately, I was too bored.

[37:13] Stu, what do you have to say?

[37:15] Yeah, I'm going to back you up.

[37:17] I think it's bad bad.

[37:19] I feel like it's a movie that tries to do a twist

[37:21] on the secret Asian genre.

[37:23] The secret Asian genre?

[37:25] The secret Asian drama, which I guess is like...

[37:28] Which is a ninja, that's basically what it is.

[37:30] It's a ninja drama.

[37:32] It's the Asian version of The Human Stain.

[37:34] The secret Asian.

[37:36] So Anthony Hopkins plays this character too?

[37:38] Yeah.

[37:40] They take all these...

[37:42] They take all these different spins or twists on the premise,

[37:46] but they've all been done before,

[37:48] and it just doesn't work.

[37:50] Like a spin city, if you will.

[37:52] It is, and the city is Paris, France.

[37:54] In the original spin city, yeah, Paris.

[37:56] Because that Eiffel Tower is always spinning.

[37:58] Okay, well before we move on...

[38:00] Is that true?

[38:02] Before we move on to letters,

[38:04] just a quick word from our sponsor.

[38:06] I just want to note that this episode

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[38:38] of the internet?

[38:40] I thought you were going to say get on the web.

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[39:05] Go to Squarespace,

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[39:11] Neckwaddles.com

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[39:50] And you are overhearing this through the open window

[39:52] of a car that is driving by your buggy on the street.

[39:54] If you can hear it at all

[39:56] because the person driving that car

[39:58] is cracking up at all the hilarious...

[40:00] If you can hear over their laughter and you're saying,

[40:02] that's a sinful amount of laughter, but I'm intrigued.

[40:05] The next Rumspringa, I only get one,

[40:07] but the next Rumspringa, I'll listen to this Flap House.

[40:11] Don't look up the Flap House.

[40:13] That's not the name.

[40:13] You misheard it.

[40:14] It's Flop House.

[40:15] Okay, Jedediah.

[40:17] Billy Amish guy.

[40:18] Tricks are for kids.

[40:20] But anyway, when I started trial with no credit card,

[40:23] you wouldn't get that.

[40:24] No, it's a commercial on television.

[40:26] I'll forget it, Amish guy.

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[40:41] And please, check them out online.

[40:46] At?

[40:47] Squarespace.com.

[40:49] Not squarespace.com, which is nonsense.

[40:53] We'll take you to a 404 forbidden screen,

[40:56] or perhaps it'll be one of those screens

[40:57] where it's like, this URL is available.

[40:59] Do you want to rent it?

[41:00] Don't.

[41:01] Go to squarespace.com, get a URL through that.

[41:02] Or some like canny web developer

[41:07] has set up a porn site already under Squarespace.

[41:09] Yeah, there's a domain owner that owns Squarespace

[41:13] that is telling his wife, see?

[41:15] It was worth the purchase.

[41:17] Squarespace.

[41:18] You're placed for the squarest places.

[41:22] Worth your place for squares.

[41:24] So, Dan, what's this next segment?

[41:26] The next segment is letters from listeners.

[41:29] This first letter.

[41:30] Listen out.

[41:31] Oh, God.

[41:32] What do you hear?

[41:32] It's a letter calling to you.

[41:36] A letter from you that is calling to you

[41:38] saying mail me, mail me to the Flap House.

[41:41] They can't read it if you don't mail me.

[41:44] So mail me right now.

[41:46] What are you waiting for?

[41:47] I know it's 2.30 a.m.

[41:49] Break into the post office.

[41:51] Put a stamp on me and put me in a bag.

[41:53] Then steal that guy's uniform.

[41:55] Kill him if you have to.

[41:56] Deliver me directly to the house.

[41:59] If you don't know the address,

[42:01] look it up in a directory.

[42:06] You didn't say your address, though.

[42:07] That's pretty good.

[42:08] And the address is.

[42:09] No, don't do that.

[42:10] Dan McCoy, care of the Flop House.

[42:13] 129 Flop House Street, Flop, USA.

[42:16] Earth.

[42:18] Wait, what?

[42:19] That's the zip code?

[42:20] Yeah, that's, yeah.

[42:22] So, anyway.

[42:23] I'm waiting.

[42:24] I'm a letter that's waiting in the mail slot.

[42:27] When will they read me?

[42:28] Will they read me now?

[42:30] Or will they read me next?

[42:31] Will they read me last?

[42:33] Won't they read me at all?

[42:34] It's time for them to read me.

[42:36] What's taking so long?

[42:37] Elliot, stop the song.

[42:39] It's time to read me along.

[42:42] At the Flop House, with letters.

[42:45] From the Flop House, for the Flop House.

[42:48] To the Flop House, of the Flop House.

[42:51] By the Flop House, shall I perish from the earth?

[42:55] So, this first letter is from Caroline Lastname with Helen.

[42:58] In the city.

[42:59] Like this.

[43:00] I'm a long time fan who's never written until now,

[43:02] and it's only because I rarely miss an opportunity

[43:05] to be pedantic about classics.

[43:07] During the Star Wars episode, Elliot said he believed

[43:09] it was the Roman lawyer and politician Cicero

[43:12] who overcame a stutter by training himself

[43:14] to speak clearly with pebbles in his mouth.

[43:16] He didn't say, I dare you to contradict me, classics nerds,

[43:19] but I must gently correct the usually infallible

[43:22] Mr. Kaelin.

[43:24] This is an anecdote about the Greek orator Demosthenes,

[43:29] whose speech impediment is usually described as a stutter,

[43:33] but actually had the symptoms of cluttering,

[43:34] like Winston Churchill, and or rotasticism,

[43:38] like Jonathan Ross.

[43:39] So, he was a hoarder?

[43:40] Cluttering?

[43:41] No one with a speech impediment should actually

[43:44] try this technique, because even though small objects

[43:46] didn't come with choking hazard labels in Demosthenes days,

[43:50] they didn't come with choking hazard lasers,

[43:52] which I guess is a laser you point at someone's throat

[43:54] if they're choking to burn it open

[43:56] so the thing can fall out.

[43:56] Put some marbles in my name, in my mouth.

[43:59] No, put marbles in your name, Dan Marbles McCoy.

[44:01] Actually, that sounds amazing.

[44:03] He sounds like a 20s villain.

[44:05] Yeah, he's a gangsta now, Marbles McCoy.

[44:07] Hey, she ain't just crazy.

[44:09] Yeah, play with the marbles, you might get burned.

[44:11] That doesn't make sense.

[44:13] Why would you get burned by marbles?

[44:15] If you were Matches McCoy, that would make sense.

[44:17] I'm just gonna move on to the next paragraph.

[44:18] Best of the rest of the podcast.

[44:20] I didn't think anything new could be contributed

[44:22] to the now 14-year tradition of commentaries

[44:25] about how much the prequels sucked

[44:26] compared to the originals, but I was wrong.

[44:29] You guys were consistently funny,

[44:30] where so many reviewers have descended into hyperbole

[44:33] and merely listing the beats of the plot

[44:35] in a disgusted voice.

[44:37] You stood out from the herd like a shot of a character

[44:39] the audience actually cares about,

[44:41] contrasted with one of the many computer-generated crowds

[44:44] cluttering the background of these damn prequels.

[44:47] Caroline, last name withheld.

[44:48] In the city.

[44:49] Yeah.

[44:51] Well, thank you for writing.

[44:52] Thank you for writing and for the praise.

[44:53] We were pretty great talking about Star Wars.

[44:55] And for the correction,

[44:56] I will remember that it was Demosthenes

[44:58] until probably tomorrow.

[45:00] That's a...

[45:01] And I'm like, yeah, that thing Cicero did.

[45:03] Small victory.

[45:04] Did you push kids around the playground?

[45:06] Yeah.

[45:07] Can I make a small plug for a different podcast?

[45:09] The Cicero podcast?

[45:10] Yeah, Cicipod, it's the Cicipod.

[45:12] No, just that I've been re-listening

[45:14] to a lot of Star Wars Minute episodes,

[45:16] and I want to recommend that

[45:17] to any Star Wars fans listening.

[45:18] Sure.

[45:19] Great show.

[45:20] Great podcast.

[45:20] Especially when we're on.

[45:21] Anyway, greetings esteemed floppers.

[45:23] I recently had a somewhat confusing movie experience

[45:27] and was wondering if you could help me.

[45:28] It's called Last Year at Merry and Bad.

[45:30] My problem is this.

[45:32] Last night I watched the Twin Peaks

[45:34] slash Fire Walk With Me prequel,

[45:36] Sleepwalk With Me,

[45:37] starring Mike Birbiglia.

[45:39] I kept on waiting for the big reveal

[45:40] wherein it was disclosed that Mike

[45:42] was the host of an alien parasite

[45:44] and that during his sleepwalking episodes

[45:45] he was engaging in an alien feud spree

[45:47] of violent sexual deviance.

[45:49] But though I watched the entire movie,

[45:51] it never came.

[45:52] Additionally, there was nary a mention

[45:54] of Twin Peaks or the entity known as Bob.

[45:57] An added element of surreal,

[45:58] surreal, surrealality.

[46:00] Surreality?

[46:02] Surreality?

[46:02] No, that's not it.

[46:03] Surreality.

[46:04] Let's say surrealism.

[46:05] That's when you buy that house

[46:06] from House of Leaves.

[46:07] Was that the tone and atmosphere

[46:10] could not have been more different

[46:11] than other members of the franchise.

[46:13] At first I was really frustrated

[46:14] that yet again many Twin Peaks questions

[46:16] have been left unanswered.

[46:17] However, the more I thought about it,

[46:19] it became clear that the director

[46:20] was doing a really thorough job

[46:22] of setting the table for an upcoming movie

[46:24] to take place chronologically

[46:25] after Sleepwalk With Me

[46:26] and before Fire Walk With Me.

[46:27] Yeah, that Black Lodge

[46:28] has been on the market for a long time.

[46:30] We just can't, we can't flip this place.

[46:32] The big revelation.

[46:34] We bought the place,

[46:35] we removed all the backwards talking midgets.

[46:36] We thought they would do it.

[46:37] It's right across the street

[46:38] from the White Lodge.

[46:39] Yeah.

[46:40] We took up all that red and black linoleum

[46:43] and put in just some shag carpet.

[46:45] Those linoleum was right over hardwood floors.

[46:47] Why would they cover that up?

[46:49] The big revelation of Mike's depravity

[46:50] was going to be incredibly powerful

[46:52] now that a whole movie was built him up

[46:53] as an earnest, fundamentally nice guy

[46:55] pursuing his dream.

[46:56] Immediately I started daydreaming

[46:58] about casting the most important role.

[47:00] Obviously a young Bob.

[47:02] A number of names flitted across the gaze

[47:03] of my mind's eye.

[47:04] James Franco, Taylor Lautner, et cetera.

[47:07] Then with the force of a Saint Bernard

[47:09] pouncing on Charles Grodin, it struck me.

[47:12] Beethoven?

[47:13] This is the Dan McCoy vehicle

[47:14] America's been begging for.

[47:16] Only Purvezoid number one has the strategic reserves

[47:18] of Purve to do this role justice.

[47:20] I like the idea that it's the story

[47:22] of how Bob went from just ogling other men's wives' butts

[47:25] to possessing people and raping their daughters.

[47:28] Oh boy.

[47:29] And murdering them.

[47:30] What do you think, Dan?

[47:30] Is this something you would consider?

[47:32] Comedy podcast.

[47:32] Blames David Lynch, buddy.

[47:34] I didn't write Twin Peaks.

[47:36] With a handful of TV acting credits under your belt,

[47:38] I know you must be casting about for a breakout role.

[47:41] Don't forget that showing Twin Peaks franchise

[47:42] did much to launch the star of David Duchovny,

[47:44] a star which continues to shine

[47:46] benevolently upon us to this day.

[47:49] Please consider it.

[47:50] Best regards, Ryan Lasting with Hell.

[47:52] I want, that was very funny,

[47:53] but I want to correct a misconception.

[47:54] Sleepwalk With Me is not a prequel to Fire Walk With Me.

[47:57] It is a prequel to Inland Empire.

[47:58] Oh, okay.

[47:59] A different David Lynch movie.

[48:00] So Jessica, you'll see a trend here.

[48:02] Dan reads letters that are Dan-centric.

[48:04] Yeah, okay.

[48:05] The first one was about how Elliot was wrong about you.

[48:07] You're right, yeah.

[48:08] You read one about how I was wrong

[48:10] and you read one about how you should be a movie star.

[48:11] It's weird that you misspoke,

[48:12] that he wrote that letter.

[48:13] Yeah, interesting.

[48:14] Wait a minute, yeah.

[48:15] Maybe perhaps my misspeaking has led us to a real truth.

[48:18] That's right.

[48:19] I read one about how I should be a movie star

[48:22] playing a force of evil.

[48:24] Yeah, but you're playing him

[48:26] before he becomes a force of evil.

[48:28] You're like Anakin.

[48:29] You're like, he's saying you're the Hayden Christensen

[48:30] of the Twin Peaks franchise.

[48:32] He's great.

[48:33] Well, I'll start shattered glass

[48:34] and then not do anything else for it.

[48:36] Or maybe you're the Jake Lloyd of the program.

[48:38] Sure.

[48:38] Now this is pop racing.

[48:39] My life will be ruined by it,

[48:41] is what you're saying.

[48:42] Yeah, because he had a lot of potential.

[48:44] Okay, well anyway.

[48:46] Jake Lloyd, son of Christopher Lloyd, of course.

[48:48] Thank you for that letter.

[48:48] Moving on.

[48:49] He's what?

[48:51] Nothing.

[48:52] Moving on.

[48:53] Any updates on Elliot's kick-started three-part documentary

[48:56] Scatting with a Cat?

[48:57] Opposites Attract and Attracting Opposites?

[48:59] We have yet to reach our goal.

[49:00] I ask because at a recent trivia night in Brooklyn

[49:03] hosted by Elliot's nemesis, John Hodgman,

[49:06] he expressed surprise and disbelief

[49:09] when an audience member informed him

[49:10] that MC Scat Cat was fully one-half Romany Malko.

[49:14] For shame.

[49:15] Clearly he is not the brainiac he holds himself out to be.

[49:18] Please do Mr. Hodgman and the world a service

[49:21] and release your scatchymentary as soon as possible.

[49:24] Also, why does Flint Hart Glomgold have a Scottish accent

[49:27] if he's from South Africa?

[49:29] Shouldn't he have some sort of boorish affliction?

[49:31] Sincerely, Romany Last Name Withheld.

[49:33] That was Romany Malko?

[49:35] Well, I asked you your Flint Hart Glomgold question.

[49:39] I mean, look at Sean Connery in Highlander.

[49:42] He has a Scottish accent and he's from Egypt.

[49:45] Or Sean Connery in The Untouchables.

[49:47] He's from Chicago and he has a Scottish accent.

[49:49] But also you-

[49:50] Or Sean Connery in Robin and Marion.

[49:52] He's Robin Hood and he has a Scottish accent.

[49:54] If you look at the first appearance-

[49:57] Let's not forget Outland.

[49:57] He's in outer space and he has a Scottish accent.

[50:00] If you look at the first appearance of Flinthart Glomgold in Karl Barth's The Second Richest Duck,

[50:05] you see that he's wearing a Scottish hat. So one can only assume that Flinthart Glomgold,

[50:12] while living in South Africa... I mean, Glomgold is a Scottish name.

[50:14] Yeah, he's an expatriate. I assume that he is a Scottish guy who is

[50:19] unhappy that there was not enough racism in Scotland, and so he moved to South Africa.

[50:22] He went there to exploit whatever he could. Because he is the eviler of the two greedy

[50:28] plutocrat ducks. He said,

[50:32] how do we make a hero out of a character whose main characteristic is greed?

[50:36] I guess we'll make the other guy a racist. A racist duck.

[50:42] He hates swans, I guess? He hates beagle boys?

[50:45] Yeah, the beagles are clearly the oppressed minority.

[50:48] Do you know the ratio of beagles in jail to ducks in jail? It's appalling.

[50:54] Juries are 10 times as likely to send a beagle to jail than a duck.

[50:57] Well, they're doing it because it's just a lot easier to feed a bunch of beagles than beagles

[51:02] and ducks. If you only have to feed one animal, because ducks don't eat beagle food.

[51:08] They eat bread. All you need is kibble and bread.

[51:12] It's a lot cheaper to just serve kibble and not kibble and bread.

[51:14] Bread is incredibly cheap. You can get stale bread, too.

[51:18] Yeah, it doesn't have to be good bread. The ducks, they're idiots. They don't know.

[51:21] They're too busy chasing the almighty dollar to notice how...

[51:25] My beagle racism is... Look, you've got to get...

[51:28] I'm going to introduce you to some beagles that are going to change your mind,

[51:31] turn you around on things. Scare me straight?

[51:34] Yeah, they're going to scare you beagle-y.

[51:37] All right, so we've got one last letter for the evening. It starts out,

[51:42] I love you all, especially Dan, but you're ruining my life.

[51:46] Can I veto this letter? Can I be the Soviet Union on the Security Council and just veto this?

[51:53] Barely about me.

[51:54] Can I be the Russian judge who gives a zero to this routine?

[51:57] After repeated recommendations from my friend, Cal, I finally got around to listening to you all.

[52:01] Cal L. Superman. Or Cal Penn. Or Cal L. Penn, who is Superman in the White Castle movie.

[52:07] I finally got around to listening to you while on holiday this year.

[52:10] This led to the unedifying sight of my white and not-so-tight Irish frame

[52:15] wobbling incessantly as I guffawed my way through entire afternoons at the beach.

[52:20] My wife was understandably curious,

[52:22] so I played her an episode while we were drifting off to sleep.

[52:25] I'm guessing she didn't like it.

[52:27] Secure in the presumption that she would find Elliot's voice annoying,

[52:30] Stuart's love of bizarre horror impenetrable,

[52:33] and the lack of respect afforded Dan generally mystifying.

[52:37] Not so much. She loved it.

[52:39] Renamed it the Floop Oop.

[52:41] She doesn't have an acquired brain injury. She's just Australian.

[52:44] I don't know how that still...

[52:45] Australians say things silly.

[52:47] You know what they call a car in Australia?

[52:49] A car?

[52:50] No, it's like a kranga oinga boinga dolk.

[52:52] Mm-hmm.

[52:53] And she now...

[52:53] You know what they call a nose in Australia?

[52:55] What?

[52:55] It's like nose, but they say it funny.

[52:57] Sure.

[52:58] Noises.

[53:00] Exactly.

[53:01] She now insists that we listen to it every night in bed.

[53:03] This means that until we manage to burn through your entire back catalog,

[53:08] the most fun I will have in our bedroom is regular dreams enlivened by twisted

[53:12] versions of Castle Freaks, Invisible Maniacs, and Southern Bells reading Belgian cartoons.

[53:17] So this is really the cock block house.

[53:18] Yeah.

[53:19] Her favorite part is bafflingly Elliot's Mailbag Tunes.

[53:22] It's her birthday soon.

[53:23] It is baffling, yeah.

[53:24] It's baffling why that's not everybody's favorite part.

[53:28] It's her birthday soon, the 12th of December.

[53:30] So this is very late.

[53:32] Thanks, Dan.

[53:33] I'm not reading it on time.

[53:35] Well, we're almost in time for the next birthday.

[53:37] Maybe a brief happy birthday song might sate her Floop Oop appetite

[53:42] and help return our late night routine to something approaching normality.

[53:45] Failing that, crank up the pervazoiding.

[53:48] Cramp up the pervazoiding.

[53:50] So I can at least...

[53:50] You want to stretch your pervazoid so it doesn't cramp up.

[53:52] Have some sweeter dreams.

[53:54] Yours in amused exhaustion, Patrick and Chrissy.

[53:57] Last name withheld, Melbourne.

[53:59] Well, I'll say, hey Melbourne.

[54:03] Hey Melbourne, it's your birthday today.

[54:05] Or rather one person in the city has their birthday today.

[54:09] And by today, I mean months ago.

[54:11] Happy birthday belated because Dan didn't read the letter on time.

[54:15] I wish you could see Jessica's dancing.

[54:17] But you can't hear it.

[54:18] But it fits the song.

[54:21] You only get one birthday a year.

[54:23] But this year you get two.

[54:26] The day we read the letter and the day you get older.

[54:29] Two birthdays, da-da-da, bolder.

[54:32] Couldn't think of another word that rhymed with older.

[54:35] I guess we'll have to solder this together.

[54:38] When you read it, it rhymes.

[54:40] I guess what I'm saying is...

[54:42] With a letter.

[54:42] Yeah, letter.

[54:43] Okay, works.

[54:43] Great, perfect.

[54:44] I guess what I'm saying is Chrissy...

[54:46] That was the name, right?

[54:47] Yeah.

[54:47] Chrissy, it's your birthday seven months ago.

[54:52] About cha-cha-cha?

[54:56] Dan, if you got in the spirit like that more often, you'd like the letter songs.

[54:58] Yeah, I guess so.

[54:59] Just throw a cha-cha-cha in every now and then.

[55:03] So anyway, this is the last segment of the podcast where we recommend movies that we

[55:09] actually liked in contrast to movies like Three Days to Kill.

[55:14] Uh, Stu, I feel like you haven't gone first in a while.

[55:17] Why don't you take this one?

[55:19] Putting me in the hot seat.

[55:21] Sizzling.

[55:23] You're always in the hot seat.

[55:25] What sizzling sounds?

[55:27] Uh, so I'm going to recommend a movie about a, uh, a bad dad trying to get in touch with

[55:35] his daughter.

[55:35] It's called Bad Dad.

[55:37] His daughter.

[55:37] It's called Playing for Kings.

[55:38] It's called Getting Even with Dad.

[55:40] It's called King Lear.

[55:42] I saw that movie in the theaters.

[55:44] Playing with Getting Even with Dad.

[55:45] Are you King Lear instead of Bad Dad trying to get in touch with his daughter?

[55:49] Zounds.

[55:49] Howl on a blast of heat.

[55:53] I'm going to recommend a Steven Soderbergh movie called The Limey about a bad dad, played

[56:00] by Terrence Stamp, who is trying to get in touch with his daughter's killer.

[56:07] Uh, played by, uh, spoiler alert, Peter Fonda, who gives a great performance.

[56:12] Terrence Stamp's great.

[56:13] Peter Fonda's great.

[56:14] Uh, this was, I think, my first introduction to Steven Soderbergh movies, and I think it's

[56:20] a nice, slow, kind of patient movie.

[56:23] Um, it does some interesting stuff by using old footage from a early Terrence Stamp movie

[56:30] for flashbacks.

[56:31] Poor cow, I think, right?

[56:32] Uh, poor cow, exactly.

[56:34] Um, and I totally recommend it.

[56:37] So, The Limey.

[56:38] I'm not going to go too into detail because I haven't seen it super recently.

[56:42] Uh, I would like to recommend a movie that I saw, uh, this Monday.

[56:47] Um, when I saw it, it was a, uh, advanced screening.

[56:52] Although, it was Transformers, wasn't it?

[56:54] Yeah.

[56:55] Because we are banking this ahead of time, since both Elliot and I will be out of town,

[57:00] uh, in the next couple weeks.

[57:02] Uh, I believe that this movie will be out, in general, at least, by the time this goes

[57:08] into your ear holes.

[57:09] I saw a little movie.

[57:10] And now it's some other holes.

[57:13] I saw a movie called They Came Together, uh, in a screening at BAM.

[57:17] And, uh, it was nice because, uh, uh, stars and director of the movie, um, were there.

[57:25] Uh, David Wayne, uh, Amy Poehler.

[57:29] Paul Rudd, Elliot Camper.

[57:30] This is becoming more of a Dan recommendation thing, where he recommends movies where you

[57:33] see the, uh, stars of the movie.

[57:35] Dan used to recommend movies on planes.

[57:37] Now he recommends going to see screenings where the director and the stars.

[57:40] I've become more upscale.

[57:41] That's what I'm talking about.

[57:42] I'm proud of you, man.

[57:46] You made it, bro.

[57:47] It's a very, it's a very funny movie, though.

[57:50] It's a very, it's, um, you know, uh.

[57:53] If you don't know, tell us.

[57:54] My, it's written by Wayne and Showalter, uh, who previously collaborated on Wet Hot American

[58:01] Summer.

[58:02] This is not.

[58:02] And The State.

[58:04] Yes.

[58:04] This is not as funny as Wet Hot American Summer, um.

[58:08] Guarded recommendation.

[58:09] Not as funny as Wet Hot American Summer.

[58:11] Qualified.

[58:12] Raves Dan McCoy.

[58:13] I mean, like, that's a, like, that's a pretty high standard to live up to.

[58:17] Like, that's a very funny movie.

[58:19] I'm, I'm just saying that to keep people's expectations at a reasonable level.

[58:24] But it's funnier than The Baxter.

[58:26] Yes.

[58:26] You know, it's a very funny movie.

[58:28] It's, it has a lot of the Wet Hot American Summer feel.

[58:31] It has, oddly, kind of, like, a lot of the, um, early Zucker Brothers feel.

[58:36] Like, it, it combines kind of that state humor with that, uh, airplane style humor.

[58:42] Um, it's a spoof of romantic comedies.

[58:46] It's maybe at its most facile when it's just, like, calling out the tropes of, of, uh, of

[58:52] romantic comedies.

[58:53] There are parts of the movie where they're just, like, literally stating, like, I'm the

[58:57] guy who does this thing and this thing.

[58:58] Like, and it's just like, all right, well, this is kind of funny because, like, you got

[59:02] funny people saying these lines.

[59:03] But it's a little easy what you're doing.

[59:05] But.

[59:06] Are you recommending this movie?

[59:07] No, no, no.

[59:08] I'm just saying, like, that's, like, the weakest part of it.

[59:10] But for the most part.

[59:11] One and a half stars.

[59:12] For the most part, it's a lot cleverer than that and a lot sharper and a lot funnier.

[59:17] Better than getting eaten by a shark, says Dan McCoy.

[59:19] Wow.

[59:20] I cannot, like, this is the problem with the internet.

[59:23] Like, where you can't give, like, a nuanced, uh, review of something.

[59:27] Where you, like, you have to say, say.

[59:28] Take it easy, Dan.

[59:29] Rocks or it sucks.

[59:30] No, I think.

[59:31] I'm just saying you should lead with the strengths.

[59:33] I, I felt like I did.

[59:35] It's a very funny movie.

[59:36] And I just like giving you shit.

[59:39] That's my main thing, too.

[59:40] Okay.

[59:41] Uh, point is, go see it.

[59:43] You'll get a lot of laughs.

[59:44] It's a lot funnier than pretty much, I guarantee, any other comedy you're going to see this year.

[59:50] Yeah.

[59:50] And I feel like comedies are often, they often take a beating from the critics.

[59:55] And it's kind of difficult to read a critical review of a comedy and know for sure whether

[1:00:00] you'll actually enjoy it yeah I'm saying this is not flawless like this it does

[1:00:03] not live up to the wet hot American summer standard but it is really funny

[1:00:07] so you should go see it that's what's called they came together they came

[1:00:10] together I do actually um I saw a few weeks ago I saw the movie obvious child

[1:00:18] at a somewhat intimate screening I know like we're all talking about screenings

[1:00:22] and stuff it was it no it was it was not um but uh it is starring Jenny Slate

[1:00:30] I'm a gad shipwrecked of slate.com the slate Empire the slate.com family and

[1:00:40] mr. slate Fred Flintstone's boss it is starring her of the slate your name in

[1:00:51] an audition I know but it was it was really amazing I Gabby Hoffman's in it

[1:00:58] David Cross Jake Lacey it was directed and I think written by I'm confirming

[1:01:09] yeah it was directed and written by Gillian Robespierre and I don't know if

[1:01:13] I'm if it's Gillian or Gillian I couldn't figure that out but the movie

[1:01:17] said both I yeah either way I hope that I'm my base is amazing it's an amazing

[1:01:22] debut from someone so intimately involved in the French Revolution I this

[1:01:28] is totally name-dropping but apparently our mutual friend Elliot no no I'm me

[1:01:34] I'm not Ursula Lawrence of the Writers Guild was in the original short that

[1:01:42] this movie then was like based off of I have no idea okay okay great no well

[1:01:50] here's she's a masked wrestler um just here's what I liked about it um it felt

[1:01:58] very kind of realistic to me and Jenny Slate is delightful and charming

[1:02:03] everything is kind of written really well and very naturalistic and it makes

[1:02:07] it watching it made me realize how much I watch so many things that's supposed

[1:02:12] to depict what it means to be kind of a young adult in a very glossed way like

[1:02:17] it was just so delightful and charming and it kind of did a really cool job of

[1:02:22] addressing abortion without making it seem like it was this it was like the

[1:02:27] huge fucking big deal of the movie it was it was sort of more around this

[1:02:32] choice of a woman's right to choose in a very subtle and cool way and I just I

[1:02:37] thought it was so delightful and charming and like it everybody showed up

[1:02:42] and just acted the shit out of it. Killed it. Nice. Yeah. I want to see that. Yeah it was it was

[1:02:47] actually really it was really fantastic. So a wholehearted recommendation, a

[1:02:52] partial recommendation, and an old-timey movie I kind of remember. Speaking of

[1:02:57] old-timey movies it's time for Elliot to recommend his stuff. Now Dan forwarded me

[1:03:01] an email from I'm forgetting the name I think his name was Josiah from a guy who

[1:03:06] said that in my recommendations I had not been recommending any Edward G

[1:03:10] Robinson movies even though I've been doing lots of old-time movies so you

[1:03:13] know what I'll rectify that tonight I'll recommend two Edward G Robinson movies

[1:03:16] real quick. Out of the Caelan crypt. My two favorites which are surprisingly

[1:03:20] neither of them is he playing a gangster even though that's what he kind of did

[1:03:23] best but I'd like to recommend I think my favorite Edward G Robinson movie and

[1:03:27] then no other time my favorite a movie called the Seawolf based on the Jack

[1:03:31] London novel where Edward G Robinson plays the captain Wolf Larson of a ship

[1:03:36] of the damned if you will a bunch of people from San Francisco around the

[1:03:39] turn of the century are kidnapped and forced to work in his ship and he

[1:03:44] believes wholeheartedly in John Milton's phrase better to rule in hell than serve

[1:03:49] in heaven and so he wants to be the master of this hell ship and he won't

[1:03:52] brook any dissent and it's a great portrait of a man who is basically evil

[1:03:57] but not without his sympathetic moments and it's a really crackling suspense

[1:04:03] thrillery type thing about people trapped on a ship and they've got to

[1:04:06] escape on the other side of the ledger the Heath Ledger of Edward G Robinson

[1:04:10] playing a heroic character there's a five-star final an early talkie from

[1:04:16] 1931 where Edward G Robinson is the editor of a newspaper that in order to

[1:04:20] goose its sails decides to dig up an old murder trial from many years before and

[1:04:26] find the people who were the lovers who were involved and ends up ruining a

[1:04:31] number of lives as a result of digging up this old case and Boris Karloff is in

[1:04:35] it and he's fantastic in a very funny role as a former seminary student who's

[1:04:40] now a really slimy reporter Aileen McMahon who's a crush of mine is plays

[1:04:46] Edward G Robinson's secretary who secretly has a crush on him and it's at

[1:04:49] one of these movies that's just like a little slow at times because it's 1931

[1:04:53] but is a really otherwise tight you know like hour and 15 hour and a half

[1:04:59] minute movie that has a lot of characters running around and doing 30

[1:05:04] stuff and just being dramatic and neat so the Seawolf and five-star final to I

[1:05:09] think my favorite to Edward G Robinson movies so that's five movies to watch

[1:05:14] before we meet up next time okay everybody yeah you got to get you ready

[1:05:18] your homework made up here at the exact same time in five weeks and if we're not

[1:05:24] married we're getting married yeah so I'd like to thank Jessica Williams for

[1:05:32] being here even though I have a cat and she's deathly allergic she's dead now

[1:05:40] he's sniffling more and more the longer she's in my apartment so we should

[1:05:44] probably wrap things up I think we should and so for the ending good night

[1:05:48] Chrissy and Patrick lying in bed listening to the Flophouse in Melbourne

[1:05:54] do it do it with each other go to sleep time to close your eyes and drift off to

[1:06:01] dreamland before that do it with each other a loving couple curled up in a

[1:06:06] non-sexual way and going to sleep go down on each other

[1:06:13] Chrissy and Patrick good night good night fuck fest

[1:06:21] who are you I've been Dan McCoy I'm glad we ended on a PG note and I've been

[1:06:27] Elliot Kalin no you're not you're Stuart Wellington and this is Jessica

[1:06:32] Williams good night everybody

[1:06:48] oh it does not cut through the fucking like we're not we're not aware that

[1:06:55] no I don't care for it you look nice today by the way

The Flop House: Episode #156 - 3 Days to Kill

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